Another person familiar with Oaktree's thinking, who declined to be identified, said the investment firm likely won't feel rushed to sell Tribune Co. assets because the company will come out of bankruptcy with plenty of cash flow, allowing it to form a strategy and wait for the best opportunities.

During the bankruptcy, the fortunes of Tribune Co.'s print and broadcasting properties have diverged, following industry trends. Tribune Co.'s 23 TV stations — including WGN-TV in Chicago — represent the majority of the company's cash flow and net worth, while the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times and six other daily newspapers have withered to $623 million in value, according to financial adviser Lazard Ltd.

With Lazard projecting Tribune Broadcasting to contribute three-fourths of the company's cash flow by 2014, some analysts expect the new owners to split the segments through spinoff or sale.

"They may stay intact for some period of time before anything happens, but it won't be very long," Sonenshine said. "There's simply no industrial logic to having these businesses under one roof. Which one gets realized first and how, is really now the question."

Given its recent actions, getting out of the newspaper business would seem to be a priority for Angelo Gordon.

New York-based Angelo Gordon also specializes in alternative and distressed-debt investing, with about $24 billion in assets under management. Prior to starting the firm, John Angelo and Michael Gordon were executives with L.F. Rothschild, a venerable Wall Street investment bank.

It is not unusual for Angelo Gordon to find itself in the same distressed debt deals as Oaktree. But the firm's aggressive acquisition of bankrupt newspapers during the recession was a separate path and, ostensibly, a wrong turn. The precipitous decline in newspaper revenues derailed the strategy, and its architect, managing director Brad Pattelli, left the firm in 2010. Angelo has since apparently unwound all of its newspaper investments except Tribune Co.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune went into bankruptcy in January 2009 and emerged nine months later with Angelo Gordon among the senior creditors that took ownership of the newspaper. In 2011, Angelo sold its shares.

In 2010, Angelo Gordon and Alden Global Capital paid $139 million for the bankrupt Philadelphia Media Network, which is the parent company of the Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Daily News and Philly.com. Two years later they cut their losses and sold the media properties to a group of local investors for $55 million.

Angelo Gordon and other debtholders, including JPMorgan, took ownership of California-based Freedom Communications in 2010, after a brief stay in Chapter 11. Freedom sold its eight TV stations to Sinclair in 2011 for $385 million. In July, Freedom completed the sale of its remaining print assets, including the flagship Orange County Register, to Massachusetts entrepreneur Aaron Kushner for an undisclosed amount.

"The equity belief you're getting something cheap, you can turn it around and get it back on the market in three to five years and make a fair amount of money — they figured out that wasn't true on newspapers," said media consultant Ken Doctor.

A spokesman for Angelo declined to comment, and efforts to reach Pattelli were unsuccessful. A spokesman for Tribune Co. also declined to comment.

While Oaktree and Angelo Gordon opportunistically bought into the bankrupt Tribune Co., JPMorgan has had skin in the game since the 2007 leveraged buyout. The bank helped finance what Zell came to call "the deal from hell," which buried the company under $13 billion in debt as the Great Recession unfolded.

Of the three new owners, JPMorgan might be the most motivated seller, according to Sonenshine.

"I think the parties that probably have the longest tolerance to stay in there are probably Oaktree and Angelo Gordon because they're really conversion players," Sonenshine said. "JPMorgan was a senior lender; it didn't really intend to be in there. So if they can sell out some of their position earlier, they might do that."

A JPMorgan spokeswoman declined to comment for this story.

Whatever happens, it seems clear that the tenure of the new owners won't rival the century-long reign of the Medill family or perhaps even the bankruptcy.

But Marks pledges that Oaktree will stay the course in Tribune Co. — for as long as it takes to maximize its return on investment.

"If it took us four years to complete the reorganization from the start, and if it takes four more years to accomplish what we have to with the company, then we're still within that 10-year window," he said.